2026 MFACW July Evening Reading Series: Jim Terry, Aaron John Curtis, and Sherwin Bitsui

Join the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) from Sunday, July 12, through Thursday, July 16, 2026, as the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFACW) program presents its 2026 July Residency, welcoming a new cohort of incoming graduate students. Visiting writers, acclaimed for their work in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and screenwriting, will read and perform alongside several of our full-time mentors. Each evening will engage audiences with poetry, memoir, or fiction from some of today’s most vibrant and vital voices.
We are pleased to invite the public to attend the July Evening Reading Series events, held in the CLE Commons Room 201 on the IAIA campus at 83 Avan Nu Po Road, Santa Fe, NM 87508.
All readings will be held in person and virtually via livestream on the IAIA website and Facebook. See links below to watch the livestreams. All readings are in Mountain Daylight Time (MDT).

July Evening Reading Series Events:
- Sunday, July 12 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Chris Santiago, Bojan Louis (Diné), and Brooke Swaney (Blackfeet Nation Citizen and Salish Descendant)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
- Monday, July 13 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Nicole Chung, Matias Viegner, and Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota Nation)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
- Tuesday, July 14 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Jim Terry (Ho-Chunk), Aaron John Curtis (St. Regis Mohawk Tribe), and Sherwin Bitsui (Diné)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
- Wednesday, July 15 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Film Screening featuring Wenonah Wilms (Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa) of Wilms Films—IAIA Auditorium, IAIA Campus, no livestream available
- Thursday, July 16 at 6:00 pm (MDT): Readings by Crisosto Apache (Mescalero Apache, Chiricahua Apache, and Diné) ’15, Toni Jensen (Métis), and Jamie Figueroa (Boricua)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus

All readings are open and free to the public. We hope to see you there!
For questions, please contact IAIA MFACW Program Coordinator Veronica Bustamante at veronica.bustamante@iaia.edu.

Biographies:
Jim Terry is a Ho-Chunk storyteller who has called Chicago his home for about ten thousand years or so. His graphic memoir “Come Home, Indio” was an LA Book Prize finalist, a Publishers’ Weekly Notable Book, and an Ignatz nominee. “Paper Cuts,” a visual comic essay about who gatekeeps history and the personal toll of discovering painful truths, was completed in conjunction with his residency at the Newberry Library and is currently being taught in several schools. He’s illustrated comics for over fifteen years with everyone from Marvel to Heavy Metal, and his prose will be published this fall in the sequel to the smash “Never Whistle at Night.” He just finished directing his first feature film and is currently working on a horror novel. He has three cats.